


Tie a Halo around My Neck

by theskywasblue



Category: Firefly
Genre: Con Artists, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 18:15:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mal knows Simon isn't innocent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tie a Halo around My Neck

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kispexi2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kispexi2/gifts).



Malcolm Reynolds likes to think of himself as a man with tastes that are – if not refined, then at the very least discerning – he has standards, ideas, and very well defined preferences. He likes his partners leggy, pretty, intelligent, and sharp enough to be just a little dangerous. He likes a challenge, but he's not a push-over; ultimately he likes to _win_.

What he doesn't like it butting his head constantly up against a wall until his ears ring; he doesn't like purposely, recklessly risking his life (just because he does it on a regular basis doesn't mean he _likes_ it, just that he needs to find new friends, or at the very least he needs to stop looking so hard for enemies.) and he doesn't like being strung along like he's nothing more than a horse on the end of a rope.

That's why this _thing_ with Simon – whatever it is - doesn't make any sense. It's like trying to put a tutu on a billy goat. Better yet, it's like trying to put a tutu on Jayne – although Jayne might actually be convinced to wear a tutu if you paid him well enough and promised to let him shoot something afterward, it would still be a complete and utter crime against nature.

It's probably a product of so much time spent watching Simon, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for an excuse to put an end to the whole, ridiculous chaos of a life on the lam – because it's his ship and his crew and Mal is sick near to death of putting people's lives on the line when he doesn't have to. Simon's devotion to his ten kinds of crazy little sister is admirable, okay – Mal respects that kind of devotion, because if you can judge a man by nothing else, it's the way he treats the people he thinks of as his family – but Simon's as slick as a greased weasel when he's got his eyes on something, smooth as a trained con man. It must be his near-genius IQ that lets him take to the criminal life as easily as a fish to water.

Now, Mal knows cons – hell, he _is_ one – so it's not hard for him to see that the darkly determined Doctor Tam is attempting more than just seduction when he tucks his way into Mal's personal space as sweet as you please, like genuine sun-ripened strawberries. He knows that Simon is doing more than offering him payment for services rendered when he's got his knees on the floor and his fingers working at the front of Mal's pants – even if those fingers still have flecks of Mal's blood on them from closing up the ugly gash in Mal's forearm. It's all calculating, and it's all working towards some end.

Except that Mal doesn't know _what_ the end is. He's tried to figure out – and Simon, to that end, is incredibly distracting – and he won't allow himself to be convinced that whatever is going on between them is something innocent.

There is nothing innocent about Simon Tam, and Malcolm Reynolds knows it. Thing is, he's starting to realize that he doesn't much care.

-End-


End file.
